all new blog posts will be done at my new blog at http://blog.samuelhurd.com
enjoy!
Monday, March 1, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
it's always really fun to see my work in action
i've been very luck to have easy access to some really great clients. working where i do the clients tend to just kind of come to me. the real effort on my part comes when i show a client my work, which is different than most photographers where the real effort is finding a client interested in a photographer to begin with.
anyway, so i just came across a new website launched using many spatterings of my photos.
it's here
http://www.mvplg.com/
looks great to me!
anyway, so i just came across a new website launched using many spatterings of my photos.
it's here
http://www.mvplg.com/
looks great to me!
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Engagement Shoot Elizabeth and Tony
So, I'm shooting Elizabeth and Tony's wedding in March and naturally they wanted to get out and have some fun taking photos with Nathan and myself. It was a fantastic learning experience and I think we'll be doing another one of these soon! Here are a few of the snaps. Enjoy!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Meetesh and Kellie Portrait Shoot
I had a really fun time shooting this business portrait session with Meetesh and Kellie. I took promos at a demonstration event for Meetesh the week previous, and he liked the pictures so much he asked me to shoot some things for his law firm's web site redesign etc.
Thank goodness I brought a long my co-worker to assist with lighting as tripod stands aren't allowed on park property (ala the entire Mall) and it was crazy sunny so a lot of light control was needed!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
an e-mail i replied to? yup.
So, this was an interesting e-mail I sent to a guy asking me some questions about audio. I figure it's interesting enough to post up for others that might need the insight.
Sam,
Logan told me to maybe try you via FB. It's kind of funny how I started out writing music on manuscript and got paid decent books for transcriptions by hand. I also was instrumental with Bell Atlantic getting started with this thing called the internet back in 1993. I am so far behind. I wish someone would just wire my brain up and let the music just come out as I hear it. Probably in the next generation :-)
so here's my current story and I'm sticking to it.
Not sure what Logan told you about me but I have a BS & MM in music; toured back in 70s & 80s. So the music I wrote nobody cares about but me. I have written tons of stuff and still have more to deliver even if just for posterity.
About 4 years ago I purchased a Yahama Motif ES8. It has amazing sounds and a lot of wonderful preset combo stuff; but it was meant as a workstation and not user friendly. Then I purchased DigiDesign Mbox2 and was using Pro Tools LE7 on a Windows XP system. The problem I ran into was a lot of delay and the Yamaha Motif ES8 just didn't sync well via a midi. There was a delay and then getting all the combo sounds to midi map was insane and a showstopper.
Since I'm a note person, a friend suggested Sibelius and it was terrific for me. I had to buy a new machine to handle the memory and it is a Dell machine running Vista. I was able to recreate by manually entering notes for many of my comps. The Yamaha Motif still had seriously delay and unfortunately at the time, Digidesign did not have a Vista version.
So, where I'm at. I feel at ease with Sibelius but it is not a mixer like Pro Tools or Cakewalk ,etc. I need to record voices which Sibelius does not do.
So do you have any suggestions for me. I'm willing to ditch stuff to make things work. Example: I think I just need a cheap midi keyboard to input notes instead of the Yamaha Motif. Also, I've been told that I probably don't need anything a complex as ProTools.
Do you have some advice?
Thanks for listening. It is greatly appreciated!!
my response:
Hey there!
Sorry it's taken a bit to get back to you. Crazy busy recently. Anyway, First problem...you're using Pro Tools LE. Though Pro Tools is the "industry standard" it's actually the Pro Tools HD that's the standard (starting at $10,000) and their LE and M-powered solutions can't touch other native DAWs these days.
Now, you're issues with the delay may be caused by one, or two things. The first is the latency amount set by your sound card, or m-box. There should be some settings in the audio preferences which let you adjust the latency for your box. This will cause more or less delay for all things in pro tools (plug-ins, monitoring, etc), but a longer delay is less taxing on the CPU etc. etc. So, first thing to check is that your latency is as low as it will go without hearing drop outs and slowing down your computer too much. The second thing is that you might be monitoring improperly. You should have the ability to do zero latency monitoring if what you're recording from your Yahama is going in via 1/4 input and not triggering some midi instrument. Zero latency monitoring means you're not listening to yourself through the computer, but directly from the output of the input (if that makes any sense?). Your m-box should let you monitor your inputs along with the playback of your computer, thus allowing for no delay recording. Of course, I've heard that pro tools LE doesn't have automatic delay compensation as well, so who knows if that's coming into play with your problems as well.
So, what I would recommend first is ditching pro tools and probably that m-box. Now as far as using a notation software...it's going to be a bit tricky. The problem with audio programs like pro tools, sonar, cubase, etc is that notation is really an after thought for them. They aren't going to touch a stand alone program like Sibelius. So you're probably going to need to just stick with Sibelius for notation and something else for mixing in voices and other various things.
The DAW I use, apart from pro tools HD, is Cakewalk's Sonar. Its got a fantastic work flow, and in my opinion is the by far the best solution for a windows based recording system. It sounds like it might be overkill for what you need though, which is why I'm actually going to recommend a brand new DAW from a company called Presonus. It's called Studio One. I've used it a good bit already, and it's FANTASTIC! It integrates perfectly well with all their hardware interfaces, but unlike pro tools stuff, their hardware and software is perfectly compatible with other formats!
Presonus just released a product called Firestudio Mobile, which might fit your needs pretty well. It's got midi input capability, two mic pres, 6 line inputs, headphone output, and two line outs for your speakers etc. Anyway, I'm not sure on cost, but it's probably not going to break the bank.
As far as midi keyboards go...I don't have any special preference. There are a plethora of choices out there, and all you really need to make sure of is that its got either a USB connection, or midi capability. If you're planning on just using it to control a virtual instrument running within your computer...than things will be much cheaper, and probably sound better!
Now, if you're willing to accept the overkill that Sonar may provide you, it probably has better midi editing, but Presonus Studio One's setup looks promising...and as I said they JUST released it so updates are sure to follow soon!
I hope I helped somewhere within all this. Any other questions...feel free to ask!!
Sam
Logan told me to maybe try you via FB. It's kind of funny how I started out writing music on manuscript and got paid decent books for transcriptions by hand. I also was instrumental with Bell Atlantic getting started with this thing called the internet back in 1993. I am so far behind. I wish someone would just wire my brain up and let the music just come out as I hear it. Probably in the next generation :-)
so here's my current story and I'm sticking to it.
Not sure what Logan told you about me but I have a BS & MM in music; toured back in 70s & 80s. So the music I wrote nobody cares about but me. I have written tons of stuff and still have more to deliver even if just for posterity.
About 4 years ago I purchased a Yahama Motif ES8. It has amazing sounds and a lot of wonderful preset combo stuff; but it was meant as a workstation and not user friendly. Then I purchased DigiDesign Mbox2 and was using Pro Tools LE7 on a Windows XP system. The problem I ran into was a lot of delay and the Yamaha Motif ES8 just didn't sync well via a midi. There was a delay and then getting all the combo sounds to midi map was insane and a showstopper.
Since I'm a note person, a friend suggested Sibelius and it was terrific for me. I had to buy a new machine to handle the memory and it is a Dell machine running Vista. I was able to recreate by manually entering notes for many of my comps. The Yamaha Motif still had seriously delay and unfortunately at the time, Digidesign did not have a Vista version.
So, where I'm at. I feel at ease with Sibelius but it is not a mixer like Pro Tools or Cakewalk ,etc. I need to record voices which Sibelius does not do.
So do you have any suggestions for me. I'm willing to ditch stuff to make things work. Example: I think I just need a cheap midi keyboard to input notes instead of the Yamaha Motif. Also, I've been told that I probably don't need anything a complex as ProTools.
Do you have some advice?
Thanks for listening. It is greatly appreciated!!
my response:
Hey there!
Sorry it's taken a bit to get back to you. Crazy busy recently. Anyway, First problem...you're using Pro Tools LE. Though Pro Tools is the "industry standard" it's actually the Pro Tools HD that's the standard (starting at $10,000) and their LE and M-powered solutions can't touch other native DAWs these days.
Now, you're issues with the delay may be caused by one, or two things. The first is the latency amount set by your sound card, or m-box. There should be some settings in the audio preferences which let you adjust the latency for your box. This will cause more or less delay for all things in pro tools (plug-ins, monitoring, etc), but a longer delay is less taxing on the CPU etc. etc. So, first thing to check is that your latency is as low as it will go without hearing drop outs and slowing down your computer too much. The second thing is that you might be monitoring improperly. You should have the ability to do zero latency monitoring if what you're recording from your Yahama is going in via 1/4 input and not triggering some midi instrument. Zero latency monitoring means you're not listening to yourself through the computer, but directly from the output of the input (if that makes any sense?). Your m-box should let you monitor your inputs along with the playback of your computer, thus allowing for no delay recording. Of course, I've heard that pro tools LE doesn't have automatic delay compensation as well, so who knows if that's coming into play with your problems as well.
So, what I would recommend first is ditching pro tools and probably that m-box. Now as far as using a notation software...it's going to be a bit tricky. The problem with audio programs like pro tools, sonar, cubase, etc is that notation is really an after thought for them. They aren't going to touch a stand alone program like Sibelius. So you're probably going to need to just stick with Sibelius for notation and something else for mixing in voices and other various things.
The DAW I use, apart from pro tools HD, is Cakewalk's Sonar. Its got a fantastic work flow, and in my opinion is the by far the best solution for a windows based recording system. It sounds like it might be overkill for what you need though, which is why I'm actually going to recommend a brand new DAW from a company called Presonus. It's called Studio One. I've used it a good bit already, and it's FANTASTIC! It integrates perfectly well with all their hardware interfaces, but unlike pro tools stuff, their hardware and software is perfectly compatible with other formats!
Presonus just released a product called Firestudio Mobile, which might fit your needs pretty well. It's got midi input capability, two mic pres, 6 line inputs, headphone output, and two line outs for your speakers etc. Anyway, I'm not sure on cost, but it's probably not going to break the bank.
As far as midi keyboards go...I don't have any special preference. There are a plethora of choices out there, and all you really need to make sure of is that its got either a USB connection, or midi capability. If you're planning on just using it to control a virtual instrument running within your computer...than things will be much cheaper, and probably sound better!
Now, if you're willing to accept the overkill that Sonar may provide you, it probably has better midi editing, but Presonus Studio One's setup looks promising...and as I said they JUST released it so updates are sure to follow soon!
I hope I helped somewhere within all this. Any other questions...feel free to ask!!
Sam
Friday, September 4, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
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About Me
- someone (not) famous
- i'm a regular guy living in dc trying to keep as many creative outlets as possible. after all, that's the only thing that separates us from them.